Expressions Learning Arts Academy stages ‘Fantasticks’

“The Fantasticks,” the longest running musical of all time, is opening in Gainesville on Friday as a benefit production for Expressions Learning Academy.

By Severin WalstadCorrespondent

The longest running musical of all time is opening in Gainesville on Friday as a benefit production for Expressions Learning Academy.“The Fantasticks,” a musical that has been running in New York since the 1960s, is a love story that’s also about family, said director Scot Davis, the drama teacher at Expressions Learning Arts Academy.Billed as the Expressions Studio Players, the company staging the play includes Davis, his daughter, Chanterelle Davis, and father-and-son actors Shamrock McShane and Mike McShane. Others in the cast include Derek Jarvis, Teague Johnson and Phillip Godwin.Actor Mike McShane, who plays two roles in the play, said “The Fantasticks” is about two rival families in which the son of one family and daughter of the other have fallen in love.Throughout the play the son and daughter deal with the obstacles that come with that love. “They belong together,” McShane said.McShane plays two parts within the play: the father of the daughter, Bellomy; and a sidekick to one of the other characters, Mortimer. The play will be staged at Expressions Academy, where it will run at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Oct. 16. The production will raise funds for the school to support the art education program there, Davis said. The program is in danger of being dropped after state funds for the school this year were cut, Davis said. “We are trying to raise as much as we can, because here at the academy we believe art and education go hand in hand.”

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